***Please note that we have extended the submission deadline toJanuary 31, 2006****

The 8th Annual Conference of the Marxist Reading Group?Spaces of Dissent: The Borders of Transnational Dreams?Keynote Speakers: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Peter HitchcockMarch 30-April 1, 2006 at the University of Florida

As the networks of global capital become increasingly complex, weare compelled to rethink the idea of borders. The obsolescence ofnational borders may lead to the transnational-corporate dream ofthe end of history, but identities historically determined andlikewise freed by disappearing borders have reemerged in figureslike the refugee. Following Marx?s distinction in The GermanIdeology, the ?refugee serfs,? rather than requiring an abolitionof capitalism?s system of labor like the proletariat, assert theirrights to production and arrive at free labor. Much like the?refugee serf,? the global capital refugee realizes an impossible(Real) structural dimension through which capital itself is calledinto question?the refugee is the paradox or contradiction ofcapitalism?s driving force: the very opposition capitalism triesto integrate into itself again. In light of these conceptions,does the refugee represent a missed opportunity to re-establish aresistance to the coordinates of global capital's structure?

Moreover, if we can read the neoliberal rhetoric of corporateflexibility as a response to the multi/transnational phase ofglobal capital, can we see the recent trend in academe towardinterdisciplinarities as mimicking the neoliberal imperative tofind flexibility within fixed borders? Or does it constitute aradical opposition, providing the opportunity to reconceptualizethe spaces we inhabit?

This conference seeks papers that link the ideas of borders toMarxist theory.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a committed activist, renownedtheorist, cultural critic, and influential translator. Thetranslation and introduction of Jacques Derrida?s Of Grammatologyintroduced her as a radical critic willing to interrogate thepremises of Marxism, feminism, and deconstruction. She helpeddefine the field of postcolonial studies with her seminal essay?Can the Subaltern Speak?? and continues to complicate the fieldthrough such works as A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward aHistory of the Vanishing Present, Death of a Discipline and theforthcoming Other Asias. She is Avalon Foundation Professor in theHumanities at Columbia University and devotes much of her time toteacher training in India and Bangladesh.

Peter Hitchcock is the author of Imaginary States: Studies inCultural Transnationalism and has written widely on literarystudies, cultural theory, Mikhail Bahktin, and dialogics. Hisresearch interests span many disciplines?working-class fiction,film studies, Marxism, transnationalism, and post-colonial theory,to name a few?and his book, Oscillate Wildly: Space, Body, andSpirit of Millennial Materialism, continues to highly influencethe study of spatial theory. In addition, Hitchcock has served asassociate director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics,as well as on the editorial board of Cultural Logic. He teaches atBaruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

We seek papers that address (but are not limited to) the followingtopics: